Gone in Only One Generation

Battle for Kids’ Minds

Every generation has the same decision to make: Will I serve the God of the Bible or a false god? The “god of this world” may shift his seductions slightly
from generation to generation, but the basic challenge is always the same. So
Christians must be ever vigilant. Every newborn must be taught the truth from
scratch or else that soul could be completely lost. While statistics indicate
that churches and Christian homes are failing to reach kids, God has given us
all the resources we need to turn the tide!

How long does it take to lose a culture, from a Christian perspective?

Actually, it takes only one generation.

The devil knows this, and of course God warns us about it. Adolf Hitler understood
this when he said, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future!”1

Over and over again in Scripture, God instructs His people to make sure they
train up the next generation.

For instance, when God miraculously enabled Joshua to lead the people through
the Jordan River, the first thing He told Joshua to do was to take twelve stones
from the riverbed to build a memorial. But what was the memorial for?

Joshua explained, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying,
‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know . . . the Lord
your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed
over . . . that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord,
that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever” (Joshua 4:21–24).

Battle for Kids’ Minds

The stones were to remind the parents to make sure they taught the next generation
about the true God. They were instructed to pass on the knowledge and fear of
God to their children.

I think one of the saddest pages in the Bible is in Judges 2:10–12, “When all
that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose
after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.
Then the children of Israel . . . forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who
had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from
among the gods of the people who were all around them.”

After Joshua and all the first generation of parents who entered the Promised
Land died, the next generation served false gods! It took only one generation
to lose the spiritual legacy that should have been passed on.

What happened? In Deuteronomy 6:6–7 God had given clear instructions to the
fathers: “These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You
shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you
sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you
rise up.”

Obviously the parents in Joshua’s day did not teach their children as they
should have—and in one generation, the devil had those kids! While it’s ultimately
a matter of God’s grace that anyone is saved, God has given parents an immense
responsibility to do their part. Over and over again, the Jewish fathers were
told about their crucial role but they shirked it (see Psalm 78).

It’s Happening to This Generation

Sadly, this same situation already has occurred or is happening now in Western
nations once influenced by Christianity. Many fathers today are not carrying
out their God-given, God-commanded role to be the spiritual head of their house
and to take the responsibility for training their children in spiritual matters.

In England, two-thirds of young people now say they don’t believe in God—in
a culture where most people once went to church.2

In America, a major poll indicated that two-thirds of young people will leave
the church once they live on their own.3 Answers in Genesis
commissioned America’s Research Group to find out why this is happening and
published the results in the book Already Gone in 2009. It showed clearly
these kids were doubting and thus begin to disbelieve the Bible at a very young
age.

We also established that around 90% of those who leave church attended public
schools, where by and large God, creation, the Bible, and prayer (in other words
Christianity) have been thrown out. Atheistic evolution is taught as fact. The
vast majority of these students were not taught apologetics (how to give a reasoned
defense of the Christian faith) in their homes or churches, so they don’t believe
it themselves and certainly can’t defend it to others.

An Aggressive New Agenda Against God

The public schools have been teaching their own brand of apologetics: how to
defend the idea of evolution and history over millions of years, thus causing
multitudes of U.S. students from Christian homes to doubt the history in Genesis.
Doubts about Genesis place young people on a slippery slide of unbelief that
eventually destroys their confidence in the rest of Scripture. Their trust in
the soul-saving gospel itself, which is grounded on the Bible’s historical claims,
is undermined.

Young people are woefully unprepared to understand and defend their beliefs.

Even when parents pull their kids out of public school, the anti-God message
is so prevalent in the media, museums, and colleges—and even among friends,
neighbors, and workmates—that young people are woefully unprepared to understand
and defend their beliefs. Even many leaders in Christian education have compromised
with evolution and earth history over millions of years. Many groups are now
even producing homeschool curricula that promote evolution and millions of years!

Eventually, most kids will leave the church.

Joseph Stalin knew the power of education as a propaganda tool. In just one
generation, he converted hordes of the deeply religious Russian people into
followers of atheistic Marxism. He said, “Education is a weapon, the effect
of which is determined by the hands which wield it.”4

Sadly, most of the people who control the West’s publishing and video industries
today reject the God of the Bible, and they are winning over the next generation,
indoctrinating them in evolutionary humanism. Day after day, our children are
bombarded with their message.

The consequences in America were again confirmed in October 2012, when the
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released new survey results. The CNN website
reported, “The fastest growing ‘religious’ group in America is made up of people
with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five
Americans is not affiliated with any religion . . . . The survey found that
the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.
Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million
in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new
survey.”5

The Old Approaches Just Aren’t Working

For years I have been warning churchgoers about this danger in my presentations.
Despite the fact America has many megachurches and more Christian resources
than any other country in history, America as a culture is becoming more secular
every day. America is heading down the same path as Europe and England.

The CNN item reported that atheist and secular leaders were elated by the Pew
poll. Jesse Galef, communications director for the Secular Student Alliance,
expected the growth to translate into greater political power for secular interests:
“As more of the voters are unaffiliated and identifying as atheist and agnostics,
I think the politicians will follow that for votes. We won’t be dismissed or
ignored anymore.”

Just before the poll was released, Bill Nye the “Science Guy” (from a popular
1990s TV program), expressed the agenda of today’s elite in public education
and the media. In a video entitled Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children,
Nye basically says if children aren’t taught evolution as fact, America will
lose its edge in science, and no longer have engineers and other innovators.
Bill Nye, incidentally, was voted humanist of the year in 2010. His words reflect
the growing, deliberate agenda of the media elite to capture the next generation
for the secular humanists.

In an article by a staffer from the National Center for Science Education (an
organization begun in 1983 for the explicit purpose of attacking the influence
of creationism and now headed by ardent atheist Eugenie Scott6), it is very clear
that the atheists today are out to get our kids.

The last paragraph of the article reads, “What we can do is work toward the
day when American schoolchildren are taught evolution in the same way as any
other well-established scientific idea, without caveats or apologies. With evolution
at the center of biology, and thus important to the success of medicine, biotechnology,
and agriculture, we can’t afford to keep it bottled up or to kick the can.”7

Atheists don’t want Christians teaching kids about God—they want to
teach your kids there is no God! They really are out to get your kids, and they
are using the public schools, secular media, museums, and other outlets to do
this. The public schools (despite a minority of Christian teachers who are trying
to be missionaries in the system) have by and large become churches of secular
humanism.

Yes, the atheists, like Hitler and Stalin, know that if they can capture the
next generation (through the education system, media, etc.), they will have
the culture.

Christians need to take heed of God’s Word and ensure they are capturing the
next generation for the Lord—passing that spiritual legacy along to the children,
so they will not be captured by the world!

Yes, it takes only one generation to lose a culture. And America is on the
brink of such a change right now! God’s people need to wake up and understand
a battle for their kids is raging around them—a battle that is being won, at
the present time, by those who seek to destroy the next generation spiritually!

A Call for Radical Change

In view of such relentless indoctrination that bombards our young people every
day, giving a couple of thirty-minute lessons at church or home isn’t enough.
While many parents have already opted to put their kids in Christian schools,
weekly church programs, and homeschools, few appear to be doing a very good
job filling in the gaps. More is needed.

Teaching young people how God’s Word—rather than the atheistic worldview—makes
sense of our world requires intense study, commitment, and fervent prayer on
our parts. The church and parents must reevaluate their old assumptions about
the way we should be teaching our kids in a hostile culture, and work together
to build the next generation by following the directives from God’s Word.

Imagine what would happen if God’s people raised up generations of kids who
knew what they believed concerning the Christian faith, why they believe, and
how to defend that faith against the secular attacks of the day. They could
then proclaim the gospel with authority because they believed the authority
upon which it stands. We would change the world!

Connecting Answers to the Gospel

America has long resisted the trend among Western nations to slide into secularism
and unbelief, but that is changing. A 2012 survey found that the fastest-growing
“religious” group in America has no religion at all. One in five Americans
claims no affiliation with religion, and this category is even higher among
young adults (one in three).

This downward spiral has impacted churches and Christian homes, as well.
Two-thirds of children will leave the church after they leave home. So what’s
missing in their lives? And what can we do to stop the exodus?

Answers

“Faith in Christ” isn’t blind. True faith must be built upon a knowledge
of the truth, as revealed in God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:15–17). To be saved and
walk with God, every believer first must know what he should believe and why.
That’s our job . . . telling young people answers from the Bible. We’ve got
to address the hard questions that are uppermost in their minds, including
the origin of sin and death in this world.

Biblical Authority

The next link in the chain, once young people learn the truth, is for them
to submit to the authority of God’s Word (John 14:21; James 1:22). They need
to understand why we know the Bible is true: the authority of the One who
gave it to us (Hebrews 4:12). They also need to see that, once they accept
the Bible’s authority, it will make sense of the world around them.

The Gospel

Most Christians realize they need to proclaim the gospel if they want to
see anyone saved (Romans 10:14). The definition of the gospel by which we
are saved is quite clear: Christ died, was buried, and rose again “according
to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). But the power of the gospel rests
on the authority of God’s Word (Romans 1:16).

Salvation

A young person’s salvation is ultimately a work of God’s grace. Yet that
does not excuse us from responsibility. We have the duty to plant and water
the truth (1 Corinthians 3:6–7) and pray to God in faith. But God is the one
who “gives the increase” and we should give Him the glory. God has designed
this plan for conveying His grace, and we need to make sure we’re doing our
part. We are the ones appointed to instruct children with clear answers, to
show them the Bible’s ultimate authority, and to share the gracious promises
of the gospel!

Ken Ham a former public school science teacher, is the founder and president of Answers in Genesis. He has edited and authored many books about the authority of God’s Word and the impact of evolutionary thinking on our culture, including the recent best seller, Already Gone.

Answers Magazine

January – March 2013

Learn about our culture's newest tactics in the battle for kids' souls, and discover what you can do in your home and church to reclaim our youth for Jesus, the Creator. In addition to this special section of three articles, you'll find all the creation content you expect from Answers magazine, including a look at Lucy, the famous ape; animals with "sixth senses"; ancient and modern reefs; and intriguing findings about the animal kinds on Noah's Ark.

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